


Fear of Falling Apart

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales), Hinn_Raven



Series: Bitter Pill [4]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Bad Future, Eye Trauma, Felix Being a Dick, Gen, Psychological Torture, Torture, blinding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 20:10:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6254209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/pseuds/Hinn_Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the war, Tucker goes missing. Ten years later, he shows back up again. Chorus is on it’s last leg. His friends are either dead, captured or scattered. And Tucker is still Tucker.</p><p>This installment: Before Tucker comes back, Wash runs afoul of Felix. This is how Wash loses his sight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear of Falling Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently when you put four angst-inclined people in one group chat, things happen. Like, AUs where everything is horrible. This is part of "Bitter Pill", a collaboration between me and the other fic-war mods.

Wash wakes up to the strain of his arms being raised above his head.

“Well, look who’s finally awake?” Felix’s helmet enters his field of vision, and Wash jerks back, biting his lip to stop himself from crying out as the movement hurts his ribs. They’re cracked at least, possibly broken.

His armor is in pieces on the ground, shoved half-hazard into the corner, and Wash grits his teeth as he tests the knots on the ropes on his hands. His feet are unbound, but he’s secured pretty firmly to the pipe. He swallows instinctively as he looks for a way out, but sees only Felix.

Going here alone was a mistake, Wash thinks, watching Felix take out a knife. He can’t see the man’s face, but he knows he’s grinning behind the helmet.

“Isn’t this just _familiar_?” Felix says, grabbing Wash’s face with his gloved hand. Wash strains to pull away, but Felix’s grip is firm, the gauntlets digging into his skin with bruising force. “Tucker actually managed to get a hit or two in before he went down, of course, but still!”

Wash lunges forward slightly, seeing red, but it’s useless. Felix moves away before Wash’s forehead can collide with his—not that it would have done much good anyways, with Felix wearing his helmet. Wash tries to calm down, before he makes another mistake. He has to keep his head if he’s going to survive this.

“Don’t talk about him,” Wash snaps. He needs to get loose, needs to snap Felix’s neck with his own hands. He’s heard variations of this story before—Wash has heard it shouted across battlefields, seen videos the helmet footage that Grif and Simmons had of watching Felix explain it as he slaughtered his way through the resistance. He’d watched a rather graphic description with Carolina and Donut, which had ended up with Carolina breaking the monitor and Donut sobbing. Even Caboose had a story. Caboose had cried for a week. He knows Felix is lying, he’s just screwing with him.

But that doesn’t change the fact that he killed Tucker, and every inch of Wash is crying out to make him _pay_.

“Still so much fight in you, huh?” Felix’s voice is laughing, and then he buries the knife deep in Wash’s shoulder. Wash can’t stop himself from crying out. “Man, I’ve been waiting to do this for _so long_.”

Wash grits his teeth, and tries to kick, which Felix dodges with ease, laughing. He slams Wash back against the wall, grinning as he brings his helmet close to Wash’s ear.

“He cried out for you, you know,” Felix whispers, twisting the handle of the knife in Wash’s shoulder. Wash bit the inside of his mouth to stop himself from screaming again, tasting blood. “He kept saying your name. He thought you were coming to save him.”

Wash flinches without meaning to. _Tucker_. He’d failed so badly. One minute Tucker had been there, plasma sword cutting an arc through their enemies, and then he’d been gone, lost in the sea of fighting. He hadn’t even noticed Tucker was gone until after the battle, when he’d desperately combed through the living and the deal alike, looking for that aqua armor.

“It was so beautiful,” Felix says, pulling the knife out of Wash slowly, and Wash can’t hide his flinch, even if he’s not screaming yet. “Watching the light go out of him, realizing you weren’t coming. That you hadn’t even noticed he was gone yet.”

Wash’s breath is coming in short jerks, and he pulls himself up, despite the pain in his shoulders, lifting his feet entirely off the ground, and kicks out with both legs, sending Felix flying.

Felix laughs as he stumbles back. “Man! You just don’t know when to give up, do you?” The knife flies out of his hand, burying itself in Wash’s thigh. Wash yells, and then again as another knife goes into his other leg.

Felix says, hand closing around Wash’s throat, crushing it with all the force of power armor against normal skin. “Want to hear how he cried? What names he called me? How he _screamed_ your name as I took his eyes?”

“Go to hell,” Wash manages to say, before suddenly, Felix’s hand leaves his throat. Wash gasps for air, swaying slightly on his legs, which still have the knives in them, making even standing incredibly painful. He sees the blood from his legs and shoulder is already on the ground, and everything hurts.

Felix’s thumb presses into his blind eye, and Wash cries out again. It’s so easy, to forget the blind spot sometimes.  

“I was so mad when I heard Locus took this one out,” Felix sounds almost genuinely upset. “I had _so many_ plans. It’s hard to recreate exactly what I did to Tucker when you’re already one eye down.” He sighs, and then he brings another knife into Wash’s sight. Wash leans back as much as he can, but his arms are already burning with the strain, and his head hits the wall.

 _He’s lying_ , Wash tells himself. Felix always lies; he’s told Wash three different ways he’s killed Tucker already. He’s just messing with him, his words are empty. He closes his eyes and tries to steady his breathing.

“I kept the eyes, you know,” Felix says. “I’ve got them in a jar in my fridge. What a lovely shade of brown they were.” His knife brushes Wash’s eyelid, and Wash feels his breath hitch in anticipation. “Maybe I’ll keep yours. A nice blue one, complete the set.”

And then Wash’s eye flies open, and he believes Felix for a moment, because how could Felix know—

The last thing he sees is Felix’s knife as it pulls across his face, pulling from his forehead down to his cheekbone.

“Or maybe not. You’ve only got one, after all. I’m sure one of the others has blue eyes.”


End file.
